Corso di Dottorato di ricerca
in
Management
ciclo 32
Tesi di Ricerca
Titolo
Three essays on female entrepreneurship in resource-constrained
environments
SSD: Secs-p/08
Coordinatore del Dottorato
ch. prof. Francesco Zirpoli
Supervisore
ABSTRACT
Female entrepreneurship is increasingly playing important roles in the economic growth of many countries. Several businesses providing employment to many people and producing a lot of revenues are created and managed by women. Many national governments and supra-governmental institutions are fervently promoting entrepreneurship all over the world especially in developing economies as a means to create employment and alleviate poverty (Al-Dajani et al., 2015). However, being classified under "everyday entrepreneurship", female entrepreneurship especially in developing economies has not been the object of much research and theorizing in the past (Welter, Baker, Audretsch, & Gartner, 2017). Coupled with, and probably as a result of this low levels of research in this very important field, there is a lack of knowledge as to whether findings of scientific research on female entrepreneurship has impacted on the policies of governments aimed at promoting female entrepreneurship. There is also insufficient knowledge as to the motivation of women in developing countries for going into entrepreneurship, and how they fund their entrepreneurial activities, considering the levels of poverty in those environments. This thesis seeks to contribute to filling these gaps by reviewing female entrepreneurship research, and empirically exploring female entrepreneurship in resource-constrained environments – Ghana and Ivory Coast. The contribution is organized into three research articles.
The first paper uses bibliometric tools to map the evolution of female entrepreneurship research over a 32-year period, investigating the contributors to this important field of research and the impact they have made. Through the lens of the 5Ms framework by (Brush, De Bruin, & Welter, 2009), the paper also looks at how the unique roles of women as mothers and wives in various societies and the various socio-cultural demands and beliefs regarding women have been considered in studying female-owned ventures. The findings have revealed that female
entrepreneurship research has been growing over the years and is conducted globally. The study also indicated that female entrepreneurship research findings have influenced policies aimed at encouraging female entrepreneurship in developed countries but not in equal dimensions in developing countries. This calls for more research in developing countries.
The second article uses the entrepreneurship-as-emancipation framework by (Rindova, Barry, & Ketchen Jr, 2009) to look at how female entrepreneurs in resource-constrained environments go about entrepreneuring to liberate themselves and others from various perceived constraints. A processual framework was developed from data collected through in-depth interviews and observations of 57 female entrepreneurs in Ghana and Ivory Coast. The framework details the steps involved in the emancipation process, from constraint perception, through entrepreneurial activity choice, to resource gathering, and finally to venture formation or emancipation. The findings indicate that various factors influence the various stages to arrive at the final stage of emancipation.
Considering the importance of financial resources in starting and running a business, and the difficulty in accessing those resources in resource-constrained environments especially by women, the third paper looks at the funding sources of female entrepreneurs in developing countries. By means of entrepreneurial bricolage and social capital theories we analyzed data from female entrepreneurs from Ghana and Ivory Coast and discovered that female entrepreneurs in these environments make do with the unconventional sources of funding and resources they have at hand by doing without the traditional financial institutions such as the banks and microfinance institutions. The study revealed that these sources of funding are made available and accessible to them through their social capital which was found to be a very important resource in developing countries.
Keywords: female entrepreneurship, bibliometric methods, emancipation,
DEDICATION
To my wife Regina and my children Yinemah and Adelyine for their patience and sacrifice throughout this program.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I thank God the Father for the privilege to be part of the PhD Management Program in Ca’Foscari and for seeing me through.
This program however would not have been this successful without the support of many people at various stages.
First, I would like to acknowledge the support and guidance of my supervisor Prof. Vladi Finotto throughout the thesis period. Your efforts are very much appreciated.
I would also like to thank the immediate past coordinator of the PhD program Prof. Anna Comacchio and her team for having the confidence in me and selecting me to be part of the program and for all the tuition and support throughout this journey.
To Lisa Negrello, the secretary of the PhD Management Program I would like to say thank you for the support you have given me at every stage of this journey to make it successful.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge my family, friends and colleagues in the PhD program for the support, encouragement and best wishes. God bless you all.
TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ... i DEDICATION ... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENT ... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ... vi
Female Entrepreneurship: a Navigation of the Field and Ways
Forward
... 9Abstract………..9 1.0 Introduction ... 10 2.0 Methods ... 12 3.0 Performance analysis on Female Entrepreneurship: evolution and contributors ... 16 3.1 Yearly publication output ... 16 3.2 Most productive journals ... 18 3.3 Most productive countries ... 20 3.4 Most productive institutions ... 21 3.5 Most productive authors ... 23 4.0 Trends and possible future directions in Female Entrepreneurship Literature ... 25 4.1 The “5Ms” framework ... 27 4.2 Trends in Female Entrepreneurship according to the “5Ms” ... 28 4.2.1 Market ... 30 4.2.2 Money ... 34 4.2.3 Management ... 37 4.2.3.1 Management styles ... 38 4.2.3.2 Strategies ... 39 4.2.3.3 Performance ... 40 4.2.3.4 Growth ... 44 4.3 Communication between scientific research and policy on female entrepreneurship ... 45 5.0 Discussion and Conclusion ... 48 5.1 Implications ... 50 References ... 52
Entrepreneurship-as-emancipation: A process framework for female
entrepreneurship
... 59Abstract ... 59 1.0 Introduction ... 60 2.0 Theory Background ... 63 2.1 Entrepreneurship as emancipation ... 63 3.0 Method ... 67 3.1 Sampling ... 68 3.2 Empirical setting ... 69 3.3 Data collection... 70
3.3.2 Observation ... 70 3.4 Data Analysis ... 71 4.0 Findings ... 72 4.1 Constraint perception ... 72 4.1.1 Economic constraints ... 73 4.1.2 Social constraints ... 73 4.1.3 Emotional constraints ... 74 4.1.4 Psychological constraints ... 74 4.1.5 Intellectual constraints ... 75 4.1.6 Political constraints ... 76 4.2 Choice of activity ... 77 4.2.1 Family influence ... 77 4.2.2 Personal qualities ... 77 4.2.3 External environment ... 78 4.2.4 Ease of operation ... 79 4.3 Resource gathering ... 80 4.3.1 Economic capital ... 81 4.3.2 Human capital ... 81 4.3.3 Political capital ... 82 4.3.4 Social capital ... 83 4.3.5 Cultural capital ... 84 4.4 Emancipation ... 85 4.4.1 Seeking autonomy ... 86 4.4.2 Authoring ... 87 4.4.3 Making declarations ... 88 5.0 Discussion ... 90 5.1 Constraints ... 91 5.2 Choice of activity ... 92 5.2.1 Family influence ... 92 5.2.2 Personal qualities ... 93 5.2.3 External environment ... 93 5.2.4 Ease of operation ... 94 5.3 Resource gathering ... 94 5.4 Emancipation ... 95 6.0 Conclusion, Implications and Limitations ... 97 6.1 Implications ... 97 6.2 Limitations ... 98 7.0 Suggestions for further studies ... 98 References ... 100
Making do by doing without: funding sources of female entrepreneurs
in resource-constrained environments
... 104Abstract ... 104 1.0 Introduction ... 105 2.0 Theory Background ... 109 2.1 Female entrepreneurs’ access to financial capital ... 109 2.2 Microfinance ... 111 2.2.1 Effects of microfinance on women borrowers ... 113 2.3 Entrepreneurial bricolage ... 114 3.0 Method ... 116 3.1 The study setting and sample ... 117 3.2 Semi-structured interviews ... 118 3.3 Observation ... 119 3.4 Data Analysis ... 119 4.0 Findings ... 122 4.1 Gifts/grants ... 123 4.2 Personal Savings ... 124 4.3 Interest-free loans ... 126 4.4 Commercial loans ... 127 5.0 Discussion ... 128 5.1 Bricolage ... 129 5.1.1 Making do ... 130 5.1.2 Combination of resources for new purposes ... 131 5.1.3 Resources at hand ... 135 5.2 Business stages and resource use ... 137 6.0 Conclusion and Implications ... 141 6.1 Implications ... 142 6.1 Implications ... 143 7.0 Recommendations for further research ... 144 References ... 145
Female Entrepreneurship: a Navigation of the Field and Ways Forward
Abstract
The paper presents the results of a bibliometric study of the literature on female entrepreneurship over a period of 32 years, from 1986 to 2017 inclusive. We set out to map the evolution of the field in the past 32 years; to identify the contributors to female entrepreneurship research in terms of the authors, their institutional affiliation at the time of contribution, and sex, and to explore the outlets through which female entrepreneurship research has been published; the paper also investigates if research has considered the uniqueness of women’s role in societies and how that influences their ventures.
The analysis revealed that scholars over the years have unearthed the remarkable differences that exist between male and female-owned ventures, stemming from the different family contexts and environmental dictates that men and women entrepreneurs find themselves in. The study shows that the opportunity identification and subsequent exploitation (market); the acquisition of financial resources (money) and the management styles, strategies, performance and growth (management) of female entrepreneurs, unlike those of their male counterparts are strongly mediated. This mediation could either be coming from their role in the family (motherhood) or the exigencies of the environments in which they find themselves (meso/macro environment). How government policies of both developed and developing countries on female entrepreneurship have been influenced by these scientific research findings is also considered.
1.0 Introduction
Research in the sub-field of female entrepreneurship has been growing steadily for the past 3 decades, achieving many developmental milestones and producing phenomenal knowledge on the female entrepreneur and her business (Jennings and Brush, 2013). This growth, however, did not take place in a day. For instance, Baker, Aldrich and Nina (1997) claimed about two decades ago that academic articles on female entrepreneurs were rare, and that mainstream entrepreneurship journals gave little attention to issues concerning gender. About a decade later, De Bruin et al. (2006) also observed that studies conducted on female entrepreneurs constituted only 6–7% of the total number of articles published since 1994 in the top eight refereed entrepreneurship journals, pointing to the fact that female entrepreneurship research was still an emerging one compared to that of general entrepreneurship and other fields of research in management. However, Poggesi, Mari and De Vita (2016) concluded that research on female entrepreneurship had grown exponentially between the years 2000 and 2014, with researchers seeking answers to old but still relevant questions as well as new ones.
Even though women have owned and or managed businesses for many decades if not centuries, it was not until the 1970s and 80s that academic writings in the forms of articles, conference papers and books dedicated to the sub-field begun to appear in the entrepreneurship literature (Jennings and Brush, 2013). Female entrepreneurship has now become a sub-field of research studied by many around the world, culminating in volumes of literature in such areas as the processes through which women become entrepreneurs, the consequential effects of women’s decision to become entrepreneurs, the differences there are between female entrepreneurs and their male counterparts, the various sources of funding available to female entrepreneurs and the challenges encountered in accessing those sources, and many others. Much as a lot has been learnt about female entrepreneurship in the almost forty years of studies in the sub-field (Jennings and Brush, 2013), and its impact in areas like employment (Orhan and Scott, 2001), poverty alleviation and economic growth (Kreide, 2003) and the like documented, more effort is required to address the several facets of female entrepreneurship that are yet to be studied, in order to advance knowledge of the field.
To advance the research in a particular field, a synthesis of the work done by past researchers in the field is important, and even sometimes imperative (Zupic and Carter, 2013). Consequently, the
understanding of its past and a fuller grasping of its current stage which will then point to the various directions it is likely to go. Several researchers have carried out reviews of the literature on female entrepreneurship of the past decades. Some of those reviews have summarized the main topics researched, the perspectives considered, the methodologies employed, and/or the findings arrived at by previous female entrepreneurship researchers (e.g. Bowen and Hisrich,1986; Birley,1989; Brush, 1992). Other reviews have offered constructive criticisms of extant works on female entrepreneurship (e.g. Mirchandani,1999; Ahl, 2006). Furthermore, other reviews such as that by Jennings and Brush (2013) have looked at how extant studies on female entrepreneurship collectively have impacted or might impact the literature of general entrepreneurship. Whilst adopting a thematic approach, Poggesi et al. (2016) more recently carried out a systematic literature review of the female entrepreneurship literature over a 14-year period (2000 to 2014), which has added considerably to our knowledge on female entrepreneurship and its progress. However, these reviews are either based on expert opinions or on a limited number of articles from limited numbers of years, which Tranfield, Denyer and Smart (2003) claim either lack rigor or suffer from researcher bias. A notable exception is the study by Baker et al. (1997) that employed bibliographic analysis to study the publication patterns between 1982 and 1995 with the aim of investigating the visibility of women business owners both in academic and journalistic publications.
This paper differs from all those reviews in a number of significant ways. First, by means of bibliometric pointers and methods this review maps out the evolution of the female entrepreneurship research over a period of 32 years, from 1986-2017 inclusive. Since female entrepreneurship research started appearing consistently in academic journals in the mid 1980s, this covers a longer period than previous reviews. Second, this review also goes further to identify the contributors to female entrepreneurship research in terms of the authors, their institutional affiliation at the time of contribution, their sex, and the outlets through which female entrepreneurship research articles have been published. The aim is to find out whether female entrepreneurship research is exclusively a niche for one particular sex or there are efforts by researchers of both sexes to advance the domain; we also aim to find out whether female entrepreneurship research has made its way into the mainstream management journals or it is confined to a certain category of journals, hence restricting its importance to just a section of researchers, or it is seen as important to the management research community. Third, the review
also employs the “5Ms” framework of female entrepreneurship proposed by Brush, de Bruin and Welter (2009) to find out whether female entrepreneurship research has considered the impact of female gender roles and the exigencies of female entrepreneurs’ environments on their ventures. It also investigates if findings along the 5Ms have impacted policy formation on female entrepreneurship of both developed and developing nations.
With this we intend seeking answers to the following research questions:
- Who have been the main contributors to female entrepreneurship research?
- Has the unique situation of women in different environments been considered by researchers in investigating female owned/managed ventures?
- How has the revealed role of “motherhood” and “meso/macro environments” on female entrepreneurship affected government policies on female entrepreneurship in both developed and developing countries?
The rest of the article is structured as follows. The following section presents the methods used in conducting the study, the third section reports the publication dynamics and analysis of the contents of the female entrepreneurship literature. The fourth section presents the past and current trends of the female entrepreneurship literature, put into five categories in line with the “5Ms” framework of female entrepreneurship proposed by Brush, de Bruin and Welter (2009). In addition to the presentation of the trends of research on female entrepreneurship gleaned from the co-word analysis, proposals are made for future research. We then consider how the female entrepreneurship policies of the OECD/EU and the government of Ghana have been influenced by female entrepreneurship research findings. The fifth section contains the discussion and conclusions as well as the implications of the study.
2.0 Methods
Even though the use of bibliometric methods to map research fields is not a new phenomenon as can be seen in earlier works such as Kessler (1963) and Small (1973), their surge to prominence and widespread use in recent years have been due largely to the multiplication of readily available and easily accessible online databases such as the Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WOS) which has the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and SCOPUS, and the proliferation of computer
softwares for performing bibliometric analysis (Zupic and Cater, 2013). Bibliometric methods come as a complement and sometimes as a complete substitute for the traditional literature reviews such as the systematic and the narrative literature reviews. Compared to the traditional literature reviews, researchers consider bibliometric analysis to be an innovative methodology in the execution of literature reviews (De Bakker, Groenewegen, & Den Hond, 2005). Bibliometric methods make use of a quantitative approach to describe, evaluate and observe research that has been published, thereby injecting some orderliness and transparency into the review process. They infuse a measure of objectivity into the review of scientific literature (Garfield, 1979), making reproducibility by other researchers easier.
According to Cobo et al. (2011a), bibliometric methods have two main uses — performance analysis and science mapping. Performance analysis looks at the dynamics of the research and publication performance of individual researchers and institutions, whilst science mapping on the other hand attempts to demonstrate the evolution, structure and dynamics of scientific fields. This study conducts both performance analysis employing various bibliometric indicators and science mapping by means of co-word analysis. The aim is to identify contributors to the female entrepreneurship research in terms of authors, institutions and countries and to map publications under the 5Ms of female entrepreneurship.
In order to carry out the performance analysis of the female entrepreneurship research we conducted a bibliometric analysis of journals that have published at least one article on the sub-field and that are found in the Social Science Citation Index. We included articles from the following categories: ‘business’, ‘business finance’, ‘economics’, ‘management’, ‘sociology’ and ‘women’s studies’. The review covers a period of 32 years, from 1986 to 2017. Our analysis period begins in 1986 for two reasons. First, the research on female entrepreneurship began to take
momentum in the mid 1980s and so we saw 1986 as an appropriate year to start from. Second, the availability of digital records on female entrepreneurship in the Web of Science database with the search terms we employed starts from 1986 and since our analysis is based on such digital records, starting from 1986 was an obvious choice.
For the review, the documents that were studied in the selected journals over the selected period are those classified as ‘articles’ published in English. The decision to include only articles was influenced by the fact that articles are known to go through a rigorous peer review process before acceptance and publication, thus making them capable of being considered scientific knowledge (Callon et al. 1986). In addition, articles are the documents considered to be the results of original research (Benavides-Velasco et al., 2013).
As indicated earlier, a number of measures were employed to carry out performance analysis (one of the main uses of bibliometric methods) in the form of publication activity. This is done by calculating the number of papers published by a particular unit of analysis. These could be journals, authors, institutions, countries, and so on in a particular time period (Callon et al. 1986). Through this performance analysis we were able to quantitatively study how the literature on female entrepreneurship has evolved over the period under study and also to discover the academic journals, institutions, and countries that have published the most articles in the subfield and the impact those have created through the number of citations they have had over the years. We also observed the demographic details in terms of the sex of the most prolific contributors (authors) to female entrepreneurship research.
A co-word technique was adopted as data analysis method together with other complementary content analysis techniques to map the evolution of the female entrepreneurship
literature. Since the co-word technique involves the analysis of the co-occurrences of terms such as keywords and subject headings, thereby allowing for the demonstration of the state and dynamics and relatedness of the major themes of a scientific field (Bhattacharya and Basu, 1998), we combined it with in-depth content analysis of the articles in order to ascertain which “M” the main theme of a particular article addresses according to the 5Ms of female entrepreneurship. We built a database of 965 articles that focus on female entrepreneurship in order to conduct the study. These articles were published in any journal of the categories: ‘business’, ‘business finance’, ‘economics’, ‘management’, ‘sociology’ and ‘women’s studies’ of the Social Science Citation Index made available online through the Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WOB) service. The Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WOS) database is an online scientific information database which includes scientific documents and research papers across several disciplines. This database affords researchers the opportunity to access a wide range of research papers and other documents contained in scientific journals, books, conference proceedings, book chapters and so on in all scientific fields of study (Albort-Morant and Ribeiro-Soriano, 2015). The data was downloaded on the 11th of November, 2017.
We carried out searches in the online versions of all the journals in the selected categories. We used ‘female entrepreneur*’, ‘wom* entrepreneur*’, ‘wom* business owner*’, ‘female business own*’ as search terms for our query. We searched from titles, keywords and abstracts of papers in the journals of the selected subject categories. The search resulted in a list of 965 articles published in 270 journals by 1,741 authors during the selected period.
3.0 Performance analysis on Female Entrepreneurship: evolution and contributors
In order to measure existing publication activities, Cadavid-Higuita, Awad, Cardona, and Jaime (2012) propose three indicators – quantity, quality and structural. Quantity measures the number of publications in the field and or period under study, quality measures the impact that the publications have made using the number of citations, whilst structural indicators measure the links that exist between the different authors and the works produced. This review concentrates on the quantitative and to a lesser extent the qualitative indicators. The structural measures are beyond the scope of this paper, as this review seeks primarily to map the domain in terms of how it has evolved over the period and not necessarily who have spearheaded the evolution with what works.
3.1 Yearly publication output
Table 1 shows the yearly output of female entrepreneurship articles that were published in the journals of the selected subject categories of the SSCI from 1986 to 2017. The female entrepreneurship research has been on the ascendency in the last decade as can be seen from Table 1. The yearly publication output of articles on the sub-field peaked in 2007, has since been constantly increasing peaking again in 2011 and in 2016. The continuous rise in the number of articles on female entrepreneurship appearing in many top-rated management and economics journals in the last decade suggests that more research is being carried out on female entrepreneurship with more rigor and high quality, therefore pointing to a continuous evolution of the sub-field.
Table 1 Yearly output of articles from 1986-2017
Publication Year Number of articles Percent TLCS TGCS
1986 1 0.1 29 53
1988 2 0.2 47 105
1990 8 0.8 156 465 1991 1 0.1 37 77 1992 3 0.3 18 105 1993 8 0.8 101 418 1994 9 0.9 57 1101 1995 9 0.9 58 661 1996 11 1.1 86 389 1997 14 1.5 118 743 1998 15 1.6 180 1857 1999 14 1.5 26 275 2000 18 1.9 145 1262 2001 16 1.7 183 1089 2002 15 1.6 75 713 2003 22 2.3 100 1278 2004 14 1.5 139 721 2005 24 2.5 170 1351 2006 29 3 275 1367 2007 40 4.1 322 2417 2008 33 3.4 91 1074 2009 49 5.1 213 1236 2010 39 4 87 1009 2011 60 6.2 90 589 2012 70 7.3 255 1295 2013 61 6.3 168 843 2014 81 8.4 105 616 2015 100 10.4 72 465 2016 106 11 21 166 2017 92 9.5 16 47
3.2 Most productive journals
Table 2 shows the list of the top 29 journals that have published at least six articles on female entrepreneurship between 1986 and 2017. Female entrepreneurship is a research area that concerns not only scholars in management but across others fields such as gender studies, sociology and others. It is therefore not surprising that in addition to journals of business, management, economics and finance, papers on female entrepreneurship also appear prominently in other journals. However, the first 5 positions are taken by business and management journals with Small Business Economics coming first with 61 papers followed by Journal of Business Venturing with 45 papers. Journal of Small Business Management, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and Journal of Business Ethics come next with 40, 34 and 31 articles respectively. The sixth position is occupied by Gender Work and Organization with 28 papers, indicating clearly that female entrepreneurship is a field of research that other journals belonging to other categories are interested in.
With regards to the impact created, even though Small Business Economics leads in terms of number of articles published, Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice both have more impact than Small Business Economics, leading it in both Total Local Citation Score (TLCS) – the number of citations received from the collection of articles in the female entrepreneurship dataset we are working with and Total Global Citation Score (TGCS) – the number of citations received globally. Journal of Business Venturing is more impactful than all the other journals both within female entrepreneurship (within our dataset) and outside, as it surpasses all the rest in terms of both TLCS and TGCS.
Table 2 List of top 20 most productive journals
Journal Number of
articles
Percent TLCS TGCS
SMALL BUSINESS ECONOMICS 61 6.3 344 1705
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS VENTURING 45 4.7 744 4945
JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 40 4.1 329 1530
ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE 34 3.5 445 2148
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ETHICS 31 3.2 126 1051
GENDER WORK AND ORGANIZATION 28 2.9 143 694
INTERNATIONAL SMALL BUSINESS JOURNAL 27 2.8 124 666
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT 25 2.6 104 607
INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
JOURNAL 22 2.3 34 233
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENTREPRENEURIAL
BEHAVIOUR & RESEARCH 21 2.2 10 40
WORLD DEVELOPMENT 15 1.6 21 187
WOMENS STUDIES INTERNATIONAL FORUM 13 1.3 15 141
AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 12 1.2 11 54
FEMINIST ECONOMICS 11 1.1 14 94
GENDER PLACE AND CULTURE 11 1.1 0 41
GENDER & SOCIETY 10 1 21 259
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH 10 1 10 87
SEX ROLES 9 0.9 2 164
HUMAN RELATIONS 8 0.8 23 140
JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES 8 0.8 5 16
ORGANIZATION STUDIES 8 0.8 35 246
APPLIED ECONOMICS LETTERS 7 0.7 0 7
BRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 7 0.7 22 152
CAREER DEVELOPMENT INTERNATIONAL 7 0.7 3 46
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANPOWER 7 0.7 3 30
SOCIAL FORCES 7 0.7 78 379
JOURNAL OF GENDER STUDIES 6 0.6 14 63
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 6 0.6 11 59
3.3 Most productive countries
A total of 885 institutions composed of mostly universities and research institutions located in 76 countries were the source of at least one of the articles included in our dataset. However, only 34 of those countries produced 5 (0.5%) articles and above of the total number of the articles studied. The USA came first with 341 (35.3%) papers followed remotely by the UK with 165(17.1%) papers. Canada came next with 78 (8.1%) articles followed by Spain, Australia and the Netherlands with 57 (5.9%), 47 (4.9%) and 46 (4.8%) articles respectively. In terms of impact created through citations, the USA has created the most impact in female entrepreneurship with 11,143 TGCS, and 1,462 TLCS, which is not at all surprising considering the number of articles produced there over the period. The UK comes next with 3,474 TGCS and 650 TLCS. It is however worthy to note that due to the phenomenon of co-authorship an article can be assigned to more than either one institution or one country. This may therefore cause the sum of papers produced by each institution or country to be more than the total number of articles in the dataset. Table 3 contains the number of articles on female entrepreneurship produced by the top 18 countries within the study period, producing at least 10 articles, ranked from highest to lowest.
Table 3 List of top 34 most productive countries with at least 5 articles
Country Number of articles Percent TLCS TGCS
USA 341 35.3 1462 11143
Spain 57 5.9 47 686 Australia 47 4.9 139 1269 Netherlands 46 4.8 194 1326 Germany 40 4.1 83 666 Sweden 31 3.2 113 576 Italy 25 2.6 135 511 China 24 2.5 43 272 Norway 21 2.2 26 493 Finland 14 1.5 17 121 France 14 1.5 6 113 Denmark 13 1.3 15 355 New Zealand 13 1.3 29 437 Turkey 13 1.3 79 361 India 12 1.2 5 47 Poland 10 1 12 46
3.4 Most productive institutions
With regards to performance of institutions, Table 4 shows the first 25 institutions producing at least 7 (0.7%) papers on female entrepreneurship within the period under study. All the institutions that made it to the top 25, publishing at least 7 articles on female entrepreneurship are universities except 3 – the World Bank, EIM Business and Policy Research - an independent research and consultancy organisation based in the Netherlands and IZA Institute of Labour Economics - a private, independent economic research institute. The institutions that produced the highest number of papers during the study period were University of North Carolina, the World Bank, and Babson College, producing 23 (2.4%), 18 (1.9%) and 16 (1.7%) papers respectively. They are followed by Harvard University, University of Illinois, and university of Toronto, all producing 11 (1.1%) papers each. Interestingly however, Babson College comes first in terms of global
impact created by their publications with 936 TGCS, despite occupying a third position in terms of number of papers published. But in terms of impact on female entrepreneurship per our dataset, Carleton University comes first with 163 TLCS followed by Babson College with 154 TLCS. Therefore, Carleton University with its 7 articles on female entrepreneurship has a bigger TLCS than University of North Carolina with 23 papers. The fact that the World Bank makes it to the third position in terms of the number of papers produced on female entrepreneurship suggests that the global importance attached to the sub-field is phenomenal. This possibly points to the fact that the issue of women engaging in self-employment or entrepreneurship is not just a subject of discussion and theorizing among academics in higher education institutions but also an issue of concern and research for world economic bodies.
Table 4 List of 25 most productive institutions with at least 7 articles
Institution Number of articles Percent TLCS TGCS
University of N. Carolina 23 2.4 141 683 World Bank 18 1.9 35 263 Babson College 16 1.7 154 936 Harvard University 11 1.1 25 245 University of Illinois 11 1.1 45 597 University of Toronto 11 1.1 104 731 Erasmus University 10 1 103 524 Radboud University Nijmegen 10 1 59 291 Indiana University 9 0.9 18 398 University of Alberta 9 0.9 132 460
University of Calif Santa Cruz
9 0.9 55 260
University of Valencia 9 0.9 6 80
University of Wisconsin 8 0.8 16 67
Carleton University 7 0.7 163 562
Jonkoping University 7 0.7 62 168
Penn State University 7 0.7 38 418
University of Bath 7 0.7 2 64 Granada University 7 0.7 3 21 Lancaster University 7 0.7 39 147 University of Minnesota 7 0.7 18 143 Oxford University 7 0.7 22 201 Strathclyde University 7 0.7 131 393 York University 7 0.7 10 77
3.5 Most productive authors
As indicated earlier, female entrepreneurship is a field that interests many researchers from diverse fields who have written and published their works in many journals included in the WOS database. We look at the most productive authors in female entrepreneurship per our dataset. Table 5 shows the number of articles produced, the TGCS and TLCS and the sex of the top 15 most productive authors. Of the 15 authors who have published at least 5 articles, Brush C. G. and Marlow S. have the highest number of articles on female entrepreneurship within the period under study. They both have published 10 articles each representing 1% of the total number of articles in the dataset. In terms of impact measured by citations received however, Brush C. G. has received 608 TGCS whilst Marlow S. has 373 TGSC, indicating that Brush C. G. has been more impactful than Marlow S. though they both have the same number of articles. With regards to TLCS, Carter S. is the most impactful with 130 TLCS though she has produced 6 articles. This is suggestive of the fact that Brush’s research has been the most impactful to possibly general entrepreneurship and other fields
per our dataset but not as impactful as Carter’s to the papers included in our dataset. We also looked at the sex of the top 15 contributors to female entrepreneurship literature and as can be seen from Table 5, only 4 of the 15 authors are male with the remaining 11 being female. This gives the impression that female entrepreneurship is predominantly researched by female researchers. This leads one to ask whether issues of women and their businesses do not concern male researchers or that female entrepreneurship is just a niche for women researchers.
Table 5 List of the most prolific authors with at least 5 articles
Author Number of articles Percent TLCS TGCS Sex
Brush C. G. 10 1 116 608 F Marlow S. 10 1 120 373 F Welter F. 9 0.9 63 432 F Essers C. 8 0.8 59 283 F Carter S. 6 0.6 130 384 F Fairlie R.W. 6 0.6 35 201 M Gupta V. K. 6 0.6 74 311 M Verheul I. 6 0.6 95 460 F Welsh D. H. B. 6 0.6 10 22 F Ahl H. 5 0.5 47 119 F Aldrich H. E. 5 0.5 52 335 M Benschop Y. 5 0.5 51 222 F Jennings J. E. 5 0.5 103 304 F Thurik R. 5 0.5 95 441 M Wilson F. 5 0.5 70 497 F
4.0 Trends and possible future directions in Female Entrepreneurship Literature
Having carried out the performance analysis - publication performance of individual researchers and institutions — of the female entrepreneurship literature, we now proceed in this section to perform the science mapping — the evolution, structure and dynamics of the sub-field.
The goal of this section is therefore to evaluate the major trends in the research of the Female Entrepreneurship sub-field using the “5Ms” (Market, Money, Management, Motherhood, Meso/Macro environment) framework of female entrepreneurship proposed by Brush et al. (2009) as the guiding light. We employ this framework as our theoretical lens because we aim among other things to find out if researchers have, in studying female entrepreneurship, considered the fact that it differs significantly from general entrepreneurship because of the two additional or mediating “Ms” of female entrepreneurship. The use of the 5Ms framework will enable us analyse our bibliometric data in order to answer the question as to whether female entrepreneurship research has taken into account the mediating factors or not.
The potential research directions the discipline is likely to take in the future are also identified and discussed. To achieve these aims, a co-word analysis was performed to identify the topics that have been studied in female entrepreneurship research. Following Volberda et al. (2010), we considered the most frequent keywords (occurring 6 or more times in our case) of the 965 articles, resulting in 95 “most relevant and discriminative” (p.938) keywords after correcting for spelling variations of words. We then applied the vosviewer clustering analysis to categorize the 95 keywords into 6 clusters according to the 5Ms framework. We arrived at 6 clusters because we chose to split the “Meso” and “Macro” “Ms” into two separate clusters for the sake of analysis. Table 6 shows the 6 clusters and their corresponding “Ms” with some of the keywords that define them.
It is worth mentioning that though there are no overlaps in the vosviewer clustering, the distance between two items indicates the degree of relatedness of the items. From the network visualization map in figure 2 therefore, keywords belonging to different clusters appear close to one another. This is not surprising because most publications deal not with only one issue pertaining to one cluster but many issues across clusters. We created a map using vosviewer from which keywords belonging to the six different clusters can be seen in the midst of other clusters thereby showing the relatedness of the female entrepreneurship research subdomains. Figure 2 below is the network visualization map showing the groups of keywords occurring together in publications from clusters. Clusters are represented by colours and all keywords belonging to the same cluster share the same colour. The size of a cluster is determined by the number of co-occurring keywords represented by balls. The size of the balls is determined by the weight of the keyword, and in this case, the weight refers to the number of publications in which the particular keyword occurs.
Table 6 Co-words identified according to the “Ms” of Female Entrepreneurship using clustering
analysis
Clusters Categories (M) Co-words
Clusters 1 Market Economic growth, embeddedness, enterprises, entrepreneurial
orientation, environment, growth, human capital, industry, innovation, intentions, knowledge, legitimacy, nascent
entrepreneurship, networks, opportunity, opportunity identification, performance, resources, social capital, support, technology, venture capital, women-owned businesses
Clusters 2 Money Access, bank loan officers, credit, credit market, economy, finance,
gender discrimination, income, information, investment, liquidity constraints, microcredit, microfinance, poverty, market, small businesses, start-ups, women empowerment
Clusters 3 Management Attitudes, creation, culture, decision-making, education,
entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurialism, entrepreneurship education, gender differences, motivation, nascent entrepreneurs, perceptions, personality, self-efficacy, work values
Clusters 4 Macro environment Children, context, earnings, economic development, family business,
female entrepreneurship, institutions, occupational choice, preferences, self-employment, sex-differences, unemployment
Clusters 5 Meso environment Community, ethnicity, female entrepreneurs, feminism, gender,
identity, labour-force participation, masculinity, migration, race
Clusters 6 Motherhood Child-care, conflict, employment, experience, family, motherhood,
work-family conflict, career
Figure 2 Network visualization of keywords
4.1 The “5Ms” framework
According to Bates et al. (2007), for one to be able to form and operate a viable business, three requirements must be met. The person(s) must be (1) a skilled and capable entrepreneur(s) being able to have (2) access to financial capital to make the necessary investments and having the accessibility to the (3) markets required for the products or services. Building on this framework out of which they crafted the “3Ms” – “market”, “money” and “management” for general entrepreneurship, and setting off from the premise that entrepreneurship is completely embedded in the social environment and context in which is exists (Davidsson, 2003; Steyaert and Katz,
environment” as an extension and mediation of the “3Ms” for female entrepreneurship, bringing about the “5Ms” framework. This “5Ms” framework, the authors claim, enables female
entrepreneurship to be studied as a sub-field in its own right, thus differentiating it significantly from general entrepreneurship. This extension highlights the gender factor that significantly affects the efforts of women who attempt to tow the path of entrepreneurship. “Motherhood”, they explain “is a metaphor representing the household/family context, thus drawing attention to the fact that family/household contexts might have a larger impact on women than men” (Brush et al., 2009, p.9). They intend the “meso/macro environment” to cater for “considerations beyond the market, including factors such as expectations of society and cultural norms for example, reflected in media representation of female entrepreneurs” (p.9). In studying the female entrepreneur and her business therefore, and in addition to considering the skills and or capabilities she possesses (management); her accessibility to financial capital to finance her business venture (money) and the availability and her accessibility to the necessary market to sell her products or services (market), her family or household conditions (motherhood) and the cultural practices, social norms and environmental dictates (meso/macro environment) must also be taken into account. In looking at the trends of female entrepreneurship over the past three decades through the lenses of the 5Ms, the first 3Ms that Bates et al. (2007) see to be the building blocks of entrepreneurship, are mediated by the last 2Ms added by Brush et al. (2009).
4.2 Trends in Female Entrepreneurship according to the “5Ms” 4.2.1 “Market”
Market is one of the foundation stones of entrepreneurship (Bates et al., 2007), the access to which an entrepreneur will need to have in order to start a business (Schumpeter, 1934; Shane, 2003). The identification of a potential market for a product or service epitomizes the identification of an
entrepreneurial opportunity. Market according to Brush et al. (2009) encapsulates opportunity. Researchers since the 1980s and 90s have studied the characteristics of female entrepreneurs in order to determine what impels women into becoming entrepreneurs or seeking self-employment. Researchers such as Bowen and Hisrich (1986) sought to understand what determines women’s decision to pursue entrepreneurship as a career. Using Shapero and Sokol’s (1982) framework which makes the distinction between necessity-driven (push) and opportunity-based (pull) determinants of entrepreneurship as the theoretical lens, researchers have studied the antecedents of female entrepreneurship through the 1980s and 1990s with little varying results (Poggessi et al., 2016). Building on this framework, Brush (1990) identified factors belonging to either the push or pull divides that get women into entrepreneurship and the groups of women likely to be “pushed” or “pulled” into entrepreneurship. With scholars still debating as to which factors (push or pull) influence more women’s decision to become entrepreneurs, calls have been made to look at the phenomenon from a different perspective instead of the continual separation of female entrepreneurs’ family lives from their working or professional lives which are most often than not intertwined (Kirkwood, 2009). This is where the mediation of the family context (motherhood) of the individual women entrepreneurs comes in. Scholars have indicated that the number of children a woman has, coupled with their being young (Carr, 1996; Dunn and Holtz-Eakin, 1995) is positively related to the likelihood of her becoming an entrepreneur (Caputo and Dolinsky, 1998; Boden, 1999). Williams (2004) also observed that women choose to engage in entrepreneurship or self-employment either at home or outside of home in order to have enough time for their children. More recent studies such as Kirkwood (2009) found that children influence a women’s motivations to become entrepreneurs and not those of men. McGowan et al. (2012) studying Irish women entrepreneurs found that the quest for a balance between working and family
responsibilities motivated women to venture into entrepreneurship. Whilst some scholars have documented the role of children or family responsibilities — in terms of seeking more time and flexibility — in the decision to become entrepreneurs, others have also found that women’s quest to support their families economically has pushed them into entrepreneurship. For instance, Chu (2000) in studying Chinese female entrepreneurs found the desire to support family as one of the motives for women venturing into entrepreneurship. Terjesen and Amorós (2010) found in their study of Latin American and Caribbean women entrepreneurs that push factors in terms of necessity to support family motivated some women to undertake entrepreneurship.
Although the push/pull factors dichotomy has been used as a lens to study the reasons for which women go into entrepreneurship, scholars have not been able to reach a consensus as to which set of factors dominates in getting women to pursue self-employment. Following other scholars, we propose that further studies be conducted with different methodologies other than the traditional survey methods to study the reasons why women become entrepreneurs. Future research would do well to reveal how push or pull factors might change over time in the course of the life cycle of the business. Finding out how women entrepreneurs are able to cope with the demands of both family and business is another aspect of female entrepreneurship worth revealing as several scholars (e.g. Kirkwood and Tootell, 2008; Patterson and Mavin, 2009) have shown that entrepreneurship, contrary to the expectations and thoughts of many people, is not the solution to the work-family quagmire.
In addition to motherhood, market - seeking/creating or exploiting existing opportunities - is also mediated by the meso/macro environments in which female entrepreneurs are embedded (Brush et al., 2009). One of the mediators of the ability of women to engage in entrepreneurship is gender roles that the environment in which women find themselves assign to each gender. For instance,
Mair and Marti (2009) reported that women in some parts of rural Bangladesh were not permitted by local cultural and religious norms to even go to the market much less undertake any economic venture. The same authors reported that women were allowed to interact only with family members and not outsiders especially of the opposite sex. And seeing the importance of networks in opportunity identification and subsequent business success, and the fact that networks emanate from social interactions (Poggesi et al., 2016) these meso environment factors seriously influence women’s opportunity recognition and subsequent exploitation. Some researchers have actually looked at the network structure of female entrepreneurs (e.g. Cromie and Birley, 1992) and how networks influence female ventures in their various stages of existence (e.g. Greve and Salaff, 2003). And Roomi (2009) reports that female entrepreneurs can better exploit their social networks in the later stages of their businesses if they incorporated them in the pre-start or the start-up stages. Networks might even prove to be more important for female entrepreneurs in developing economies due to the existence of institutional voids (Khanna and Palepu, 2010). These networks serve as a means for women to “countervail resource paucity and environmental adversity by means of personal connections” (Poggesi, et al., 2016, p. 15). However, Kuada (2009) cautioned in studying female entrepreneurs in Ghana that though the family and family networks remain a valuable resource to female entrepreneurs, over relying on such relations may be detrimental to venture growth and success. Kalafatoglu and Mendoza (2017) studied how important female entrepreneurs’ personal networks are to their businesses especially in societies steeped in patriarchy. They found that socio-cultural norms mediate how female entrepreneurs recognize and exploit opportunities. some of these barriers are however mitigated by the presence of personal networks. Venkatesh et al. (2017) also found that female networks (ties to family and community) have a positive effect on female entrepreneurial activity and as well as entrepreneurial profit. This
finding made from a research carried out among rural women buttresses the findings of previous studies that networks serve as a source of opportunity identification and financial assistance to female entrepreneurs.
Much as networks are said to be very instrumental in the formation and growth of female businesses, there is a caution by such scholars like Kauda (2009) concerning the possible detrimental effects of certain networks female entrepreneurs might be involved in. The scholar mentioned that some family networks are a likely source of hindrance to the flourishing of female businesses. Future studies might look at the kinds of networks that are helpful in the various stages of the existence of female ventures. It is also important to investigate the processual development of female business owners’ networks and how they are exploited to the growth of female businesses.
In addition to the meso environment factors, macro environment factors also mediate the market “M” for female entrepreneurs. Macro environment usually encompasses national level policies, culture, law, available national infrastructure, etc. (Pitelis, 2005). Scholars have studied the role of these environmental factors in the decision and ability of women to become entrepreneurs. Female education is one construct that influences all the other “Ms” of female entrepreneurship. Scholars over the years have studied the role of female education on their likelihood to become entrepreneurs and have found that education is positively and significantly related to female entrepreneurship (e.g. Carr, 1996; Dolinski et al., 1993). Kobeissi (2010) reported that female education, even if not related to business management, can assist women entrepreneurs to ably present their business plans and financial information to impress loan officers to grant them loans. This therefore positively impacts their entering into entrepreneurship.
Another macro environment factor that has been studied in relation to female entrepreneurship is migration. Even though immigrant entrepreneurship as a phenomenon is not new in general entrepreneurship literature (see Light, 1972; Waldinger et al., 1990), its link to gender is a concept that is relatively new. The importance of migration to female entrepreneurship research in a globalised world can not be overemphasized. The movement of women from their own countries to foreign ones either following male relatives (husband, fathers or brothers) or all alone has increased over the years even though these women’s entry into the formal labour-market has not been rising in equal proportions (Poggesi et al., 2016). The authors contend that these women, finding it difficult if not impossible to get into the formal labour market, might find themselves having to turn to entrepreneurship as the only source from which to earn money with support from family and relations. They propose that immigrant women entrepreneurs might face double discrimination - first as women and second as immigrants. Several scholars have therefore explored how immigrant women engage in entrepreneurship in many countries and among many ethnicities.
Pio (2006, 2007) explored immigrant Indian women entrepreneurs in New Zealand in an attempt to find out how they strive to find a balance between their “Indian past” and “New Zealand present” employing entrepreneurship to make a difference in their host country. Strüder (2003) discussed self-employed turkish-speaking women in London and the contributions they make to their ethnic community and beyond. Essers and Benschop ( 2007, 2009); Essers et al.( 2010) studied Muslim immigrant women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, looking at among other things the strategies they employ to cope with tensions that exist regarding their being immigrants and women. Billore et al. (2010) looked at the experiences and the challenges that immigrant female entrepreneurs in Japan go through in order to get their ventures running. Abu-Asbah and Heilbrunn (2011)
investigated how female entrepreneurship evolves under double discrimination which characterises the condition of Arab female entrepreneurs in Israel. Collins and Low (2010) studied Asian female immigrant entrepreneurs in Sydney, Australia, looking at the so called “accent ceiling” that serves as a barrier to female immigrants of minority linguistic, religious or ethnic background attempting to enter the formal labour market or entrepreneurship. The studies mentioned above have looked at how the macro environment factor of migration has mediated the market “M” of female entrepreneurship.
4.2.2 “Money”
Money is one of the enablers of entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation (Brush et al., 2009). Money’s importance in entrepreneurship in general stems from the fact that without it to put ideas into reality and come out with goods and services for societal consumption, lofty ideas will forever remain ideas and sometimes only in the head of their originators. Conscious of this fact, several scholars have over the years studied female entrepreneurs and their access to financial capital with all the intricacies involved in gaining such access. Decades ago, Buttner and Rosen (1988, 1989) studied how bank loan officers perceived the characteristics of various loan applicants and how female applicants were evaluated - either based on merit or on their gender and whether this led to some bias in funding entrepreneurs. They found that even though applicants are interviewed and assessed on their success or likelihood of success, characteristics of successful entrepreneurs were associated more to men than women. This perception which can be both a meso or macro environment factor mediated women entrepreneurs’ access to money for business. Riding and Swift (1990) studying the possible reasons for the well-documented discrimination against women entrepreneurs in terms of access to funding especially bank loans, unearthed a number of mediating factors that are both motherhood and meso/macro environment related. They found that female
businesses tended to be smaller, which several scholars have attributed to reasons of motherhood, that encourage if not compel women to keep businesses small in order to be able to manage alongside family responsibilities. Moreover, the predominant sole-proprietorship nature of female businesses, which can be attributed to both motherhood and meso/macro factors was found to be another source of discrimination against female business owners in terms of access to funding. Coleman (2000) studied female business owners’ access to financial capital in comparison to their men counterparts, finding that women owners paid more interest on loans that men did. However, scholars are generally of the conclusion that there might not exist discrimination against women entrepreneurs due to anti-discrimination laws or the increasing awareness of the usefulness and importance of female businesses to financial institutions (Poggesi et al., 2016). A number of researchers (e.g. Kon and Storey, 2003; Orser et al., 2006; Wilson et al., 2007) have therefore concluded that the seeming discrimination that exists is self-caused by women’s own behaviour, with a lot of women entrepreneurs not willing to seek funding from financial institutions (e.g. Fletschner and Carter, 2008; Fatoki and Garwe, 2010). Other scholars took a step further to consider not just the gender of the owner but the choice of “gender structure” of the whole enterprise. Wu and Chua (2012) found that portraying a clearly female posture of a venture is likely to attract high interest rates on loans.
Another source of funding that researchers have started looking at in relation to female businesses is venture capital and angel financing (e.g. Carter et al., 2003; Harrison and Mason, 2007). Though these have shown to be viable options of funding sources, researchers such as Brush et al. (2002) are of the view that female business owners’ access to them is limited by the fact that there are fewer women employed in these funding organisations. Scholars have recently found that irrespective of the source of funding, female entrepreneurs in patriarchal societies still face
hindrances emanating from socio-cultural norms, thereby making women business owners to rely heavily on personal networks for financial information and capital (e.g. Kalafatoglu and Mendoza, 2017).
With scholars such as Welter et al. (2016) calling for entrepreneurship scholars to move their research beyond the Silicon Valley type of entrepreneurship and to include the “everyday” entrepreneurs including women entrepreneurs everywhere in their theorising, and the efforts by international agencies and other non-governmental organisations to reach the poorest of the poor especially in rural areas (Mair and Marti, 2009) to provide them the tools of survival, scholars have begun looking at the role of microfinance in female entrepreneurship in rural areas where access to bank loans remains a wishful desire due to meso/macro environmental impediments. Duvendack and Palmer-Jones (2017) after their study of the links that are said to exist between microfinance, female empowerment and fertility reduction in Bangladesh, cast doubts on the much acclaimed positive relationship and ask for a reconsideration. Banerjee and Jackson (2017) also found that the use of market-based approaches through microfinance to alleviate poverty and enhance development in rural areas has left most village folks especially women in a more dismal situation than before. They found that microfinance astronomically increased the indebtedness levels of communities that were already reeling under the scourge of poverty, thereby worsening their economic, social and environmental plights.
With mixed results concerning the role of microfinance on female entrepreneurship especially in rural areas, it begs for further research in these areas to ascertain the real causes of the contrasting results. Unearthing the motherhood and meso/macro environment factors responsible for the discrepancies would assist in policy direction to remedy the problems leading to negative results of microfinance on female entrepreneurs and their communities. Future research would do well to
investigate the policies of microfinance companies that further impoverish rural women in order to advise policy direction on giving small loans to women entrepreneurs especially in the rural areas.
4.2.3 “Management”
Management, which encompasses the skills and capabilities of entrepreneurs or the management teams of businesses, is often seen by the regular investors in small businesses as the most important of all the three foundation stones of starting and running a viable business (Bates et al., 2007). The authors indicate that these very important skills and capabilities without which it is near impossible to start and run a business successfully, are usually acquired through education and business related experience. This business acumen acquired from various sources, to a large extent, usually determines the strategies, growth and performance of business ventures. Scholars over the years have attempted to study the management styles and business strategies of female entrepreneurs and their concomitant effects on female business performance and growth potentials (e.g. Orser et al., 2010; Farr-Wharton and Brunetto, 2009; Eriksson et al., 2008; Welch et al., 2008; Cliff et al., 2005). However, in spite of calls by scholars such as Bird and Brush (2002) to study the similarities and differences between men and women entrepreneurs in terms of the way they behave regarding which gender perspective the management of their ventures takes, there are still not many studies investigating the management styles of female business owners. Poggesi et al. (2016) attribute this to the sophisticated and complex nature of the methodologies required to unearth this phenomenon. They argue that in order to study this topic, women entrepreneurs would have to be studied “within their context, by specifically focusing on their interactions, tacit processes and often hidden beliefs and values” (p. 13).
We look at the trends of female entrepreneurship on the “Management” “M” in terms of management styles, strategies, performance and growth.
4.2.3.1 Management styles
Scholars have studied the organisational structures of female firms and have indicated that they differ significantly from those of male firms (e.g. Chaganti,1986; Westerberg, 1996). The researchers reveal that female firms usually have an organisational structure that is described as a “horizontal network”. Holmquist and Sundin (1990) and Farr-Wharton and Brunetto (2009) have indicated that management policies of female firms are often more relational and nurturing than directional and commanding, with decision making open to participation (Chaganti, 1986) especially when dealing with employees. This unconventional style of management made Carter et al. (1997) to conclude that women employ different management styles to run their ventures, making use of different business strategies from their male counterparts. This relational kind of management employed by women in the running of their ventures might be mediated by their natural roles as mothers or by their environment. Eriksson et al. (2008) for instance assert that the cooperative nature of women’s style of management is not necessarily gendered in a particular way and that the context in which the entrepreneurs operates contributes.
Future research would contribute invaluably by investigating the motivation for women entrepreneurs’ adoption of this more relational, consultative and democratic style of management and the impact of these management styles on performance, not necessarily financial performance but the achievement of the objectives for which women start their businesses. These findings would shed more light on the possible mediators of female management styles and how those styles lead to goal achievement.
4.2.3.2 Strategies
Strategy is defined as a plan of action that spells out an organisation’s goals and outlines the required resources and activities to achieve those goals (Wagner and Hollenbeck, 1995, p.618). Even though the strategies of female entrepreneurs, like their male counterparts, are an important aspect of their ventures and worth studying, there is a lack of studies in this area which scholars such as Brush (1992) have already highlighted. The unavailability of studies on this very important aspect of female business is attributed to two reasons by Poggesi et al. (2016). First, they propose that for the strategies of a business venture to be analysed one needs to employ a longitudinal analytic method, analysing longitudinal data. Access to such data is particularly difficult in the estimation of the scholars. Second, small and young businesses, as is mostly the case with female businesses, seldom have well-developed strategies due to the unavailability of time and money, as compared to bigger and older more established ventures (Verheul et al., 2002; Lasher, 1999; Matthews and Scott, 1995). In many cases, women’s businesses are small and perpetually young due to frequent career interruptions (Kaplan, 1988) and the primary duty of attending to family and the needs of children (Aldrich, 1989). With size and age likely affecting negatively the amount of money female enterprises have to enable them among other things draw up strategies for their operations, it is not far-fetched to propose that motherhood affects the strategies of female entrepreneurs. With inadequate time and resources to engage in strategy formulation and strategic management, it is not surprising that the number of studies on the strategies of female-owned businesses is scanty. However, due to the phenomenal growth in the numbers of female-owned businesses and the remarkable increase in their contribution to economic growth and the creation of jobs in the last few decades in many countries around the world (Verheul et al., 2002), scholars have defied the odds and studied some female ventures’ internationalization strategies. Welch et
al. (2008) studied the internationalization process of women business owners in Australia, looking at “gender as social identity” and not as dichotomous variable (male or female). They found that those women studied found exporting to be an experience that brought changes to their lives, with some being able to identify themselves as entrepreneurs, something they would hitherto not have done. The researchers also found that motherhood (women who had dependent children at the time they started exporting) slowed the rate at which exports grew, as exporting mothers had to juggle between childcare and exporting activities. Orser et al. (2010) also considered the export propensities of female firms by seeking possible explanations from both the liberal feminism and social feminism camps. They found that female owned firms were underrepresented in the export arena, which is in line with previous findings. They also found that meso/macro environment factors such as immigrant status, owner’s growth intention, subtle and even blatant discrimination resulting in gender bias affect female entrepreneurs’ export activities.
Future studies would benefit and enrich the female entrepreneurship literature by looking at the forms of internationalisation (direct exportation, indirect exportation, joint-ventures franchising, contracting) that is more beneficial to female entrepreneurs considering the impediments they face in internationalising. Such findings would be beneficial in helping build female firm exportation theories, and hence help grow female businesses through internationalisation.
4.2.3.3 Performance
Research on female-owned business performance has traditionally been carried out by comparing the performance of female-owned ventures to that of the ventures of their male counterparts, producing mixed results (Du Rietz and Henrekson, 2000). Some scholars have found female businesses to be underperforming whilst others report the contrary or at least neutral results. Studies (e.g. Rosa et al., 1996) have reported results indicating underperformance by
